Middle-earth: Shadow of War delayed almost two months

Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to 2014’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, will now be released Oct. 10, developer Monolith Productions announced today.

The new date represents a delay of seven weeks. When the studio and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced Shadow of War in February, they set a release date of Aug. 22.

“As with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Monolith is committed to delivering the highest quality experience,” the studio said today in its delay announcement. “In order to do this, we have made the difficult decision to move our launch date to ensure that Middle-earth: Shadow of War will deliver on that promise.”

Monolith added that it will “show more at E3.” Shadow of War expands on the Nemesis system that debuted in Shadow of Mordor, whereby players’ actions affected the relationships they formed with enemy leaders over the course of the game.

Shadow of War is in development on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. It will support the PlayStation 4 Pro and Microsoft’s Project Scorpio, and it will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title across Windows 10 and Xbox One. For more on Shadow of War, read our preview from May.